2011: Volkswagen helps pint-sized Darth Vader feel the force

Even five year’s later, this is still the most shared Super Bowl ad in history, with a cute kid role-playing as Star Wars villain Darth Vader around the house, only to be surprised that he might just have the power of The Force due to the Volkswagen Passat’s remote controlled features.

The ad, it has been said, revolutionized the way advertisers viewed the Super Bowl as they saw large numbers of social sharing start to become the norm with instant hit campaigns. This led to teasers and early previews soon becoming part of the pre-air strategy in order to capitalize more on such potential success and get more from their spend.

Created by Deutsch, this was Volkswagen’s first Super Bowl ad in a decade, and what a sensational way to return to the event it was.

“Very early on we knew it was extraordinary, but you can never predict what the world thinks is fantastic,” Tom Else, Deutsch’s VW account director, told Time magazine while discussing the ad.